One putt changes everything for Overton

SAN MARTIN, Calif. (AP) — Six holes and six pars into the new PGA Tour season, frustration already was starting to build for Jeff Overton.

The seventh straight par made all the difference.

It was a putt from just inside 6 feet, but just seeing it go in the hole was all Overton needed to feel as though he couldn't miss. He holed a 25-foot putt on the next hole. After blasting a 3-wood from 244 yards on the green at the par-5 ninth, he made a 20-foot putt for eagle.

"I saw the ball go in the hole one time, and was just chipping and putting it in — just everything," Overton said. "It was just one of those that went my way at the end."

He closed out the opening round with two more birdies for a 7-under 64 on Thursday that gave him a one-shot lead over Brian Harman.

And so began a new and most different season on the PGA Tour.

For the first time in history, the tour is starting in October instead of January of the new year. The wraparound season, which will end next September at the Tour Championship to conclude the FedEx Cup, was brought about in part to keep the sponsorship of the fall events.

There will be a six-week break before 2014 and the Tournament of Champions at Kapalua.

Some players didn't get a break at all. Hideki Matsuyama, Angel Cabrera and Marc Leishman all played in the Presidents Cup last week in rainy Ohio. Matsuyama, with a 70, was the only player to break par.

Instead of starting the year looking at a fairway some 80 yards wide at Kapalua — and playing in 80-degree temperatures in a tropical paradise — Bryce Molder wore rain pants to cope with the morning chill of California in October. It was barely 50 when he pulled his tee shot so far left of the fairway that he nearly didn't find the golf ball.

There were plenty of new faces at CordeValle. Tyron Aswegen had a 69 and Kevin Tway had a 70 among the eight rookies in the field.

There was a well-traveled American. Brooks Koepka started his year on the Challenge Tour, won three times to get his European Tour card and is playing the Frys.com Open before he heads to China to play a European Tour event. He also played a Web.com Tour event this year.

"Four tours," he said with a smile after finishing in near darkness. He also had a 4-under 67.

And while it was a good start for Overton, it felt like a new year to Robert Allenby. He bogeyed the 18th hole by trying to drive down the right side of the fairway. Winding up on the other side of the fairway to the left of the hazard, he was blocked by a tree and then fooled by the firm sand in a bunker.

It wasn't going to ruin his day. He shot 68. He broke par in the first round.

"I think it's the first time I've done that all year," Allenby said. That was true no matter what season he was talking about. The last time Allenby broke par in the opening round was the McGladrey Classic almost one year ago.

Nine players didn't make a birdie.

But the roughest start belonged to Jhonattan Vegas of Venezuela. He made a quick detour to use the bathroom before his morning tee time, never realizing that he would be pressed for time. He sauntered over to the tee box 12 seconds past his deadline. Arriving late meant a two-shot penalty.

Vegas started his year attempting birdie from 412 yards away and his ball on a tee.

"I was just caught off guard," he said. "It never crossed my mind I would be late to the tee. I made a mistake and I paid the price. It's not an easy way to start the year"

He opened with a 76.

Overton, who remains the only American to play in the Ryder Cup without ever having won on the PGA Tour, had a year in which just about everything went wrong. He didn't play in any of the majors for the first time since 2007. He was disqualified from Colonial when he thought he could use a training aid to practice putting when there was a delay at the turn. He opened with a 69 in the John Deere Classic and had to withdraw when he felt shooting pain in his right wrist.

And he was the alternate who didn't get in the PGA Championship, leading to a series of angry tweets toward the PGA of America for not giving an exemption to a guy who played in the Ryder Cup at Wales three years earlier.

Overton said only that "everything is all good" when asked about his relationship with the PGA of America.

He hopes the same can be said about his game this year, especially after spending the last few months moving to a stronger grip to alleviate recurring pain in his left wrist. It worked beautifully on a sunny day in the foothills south of San Jose.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/one-putt-changes-everything-overton-074422343--spt.html
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French Senate lays bare doping in 1998 Tour de France

By Alexandria Sage

PARIS (Reuters) - The top two in the 1998 Tour de France - Italian Marco Pantani and Germany's Jan Ullrich - were taking the banned blood booster EPO, a French Senate inquiry into sports doping said on Wednesday.

The medical stubs enclosed in the 918-page report, when compared against a separate list of test results, also reveal that American Lance Armstrong tested positive for EPO in 1999.

Just three days after the end of the 100th Tour, an event that was dogged by persistent speculation about doping, the 21-member parliamentary group said a "truth and reconciliation" commission should be created to lift the veil of silence on illegal practices.

The group recommended that the French government finance studies about the extent of doping, its risks and the range of drugs used.

"We cannot properly fight something that we don't understand," parliamentarian Jean-Jacques Lozach, the group's spokesman, told journalists.

"Speaking of doping doesn't harm sport but instead contributes in the medium and long term to restore its greatness. Not speaking about it often means not doing anything."

"NO ONE IS DUPED"

Armstrong, the popular face of professional cycling who beat cancer to win the Tour seven times, was stripped of his titles after a sophisticated doping program was uncovered in October by the United States Anti-Doping Agency.

He later admitted having taken performance-enhancing drugs.

The list of athletes who tested positive for EPO during the 1998 Tour included Ullrich and Pantani, who died of a drug overdose in 2004, according to data published in the document. Ullrich admitted in June he underwent blood doping procedures and was banned in 2012 for two years for a doping offence.

In October Bobby Julich, who finished third in the 1998 Tour, admitted to taking EPO from 1996 until that race, when his wife found out about his EPO habit.

Sports daily L'Equipe reported last month that a 1998 urine sample from Frenchman Laurent Jalabert showed traces of the banned blood-booster EPO when it was re-tested in 2004. That result was confirmed in the Senate report.

A test to detect the presence of EPO was introduced in 2000. Four years later, France's anti-doping agency decided to re-test urine samples from the 1998 and 1999 Tours using the new technology.

Jacky Durand, a now-retired winner of three stages on the Tour who was also named in the report, wrote on the Eurosport.fr site on Tuesday that he accepted responsibility for his doping.

"I don't think anyone is duped," he wrote. "The new generation shouldn't have to pay for the stupid things we did in the past."

The five-month investigation by the 21-member Senate group looked at 18 different sports and interviewed 138 individuals. Not all their names were disclosed.

It recommended that sporting calendars be approved by the sports minister to reduce the taxing schedules that it said created favorable conditions for doping.

Blood and urine samples should be used to test for more substances at the same time to cut down on the volume of samples and streamline the testing process.

The inquiry revealed an "incredible inability" for different organizations to work together and share information, Lozach said. "The anti-doping fight would be a lot more effective if the different actors in sports, law enforcement and justice cooperated."

The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) welcomed the inquiry's findings and said it would "consider the recommendations of the report thoroughly".

Chris Froome, who won the Tour on Sunday, and his team, Team Sky, were dogged by questions about doping throughout the three weeks of racing despite repeated assertions that they were clean and offers to release the team's data to WADA.

Jalabert told the French commission in May: "Today I'm convinced that you can do the Tour de France without doping and obtain results.

"I will admit that cycling is a discipline that deserves blame, but I'd really like to see the day when we recognize that it was a sport that was a vanguard in anti-doping, and which assumed its responsibilities.

"It's unfair to represent it today as the only sport that involves cheaters."

(Additional reporting by Tara Oakes; editing by Robert Woodward)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/french-senate-lays-bare-doping-1998-tour-france-135501971.html

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Table for 7: {Crock Pot} Hawaiian Chicken

We recently purchased a chest freezer for our basement. ?The freezer with our refrigerator is pretty darn small and was overflowing on a regular basis. ?To get something out of the freezer was at times, a major tactical operation. ?Imagine, trying to get ice cream and having to remove a billion other things to get to it. A nightmare. ? Yes, I could just stop buying ice cream (what!), but, no..I simply convinced Mr Plain that we needed a stand alone freezer to contain our overflowing freezer items. ?

I was so excited to get it. It was going to be so fabulous! ?And it is. ?However, it's a good size and it looks kinda empty after I evenly distributed everything. ?My next great idea was to start pre-planning meals and freezing them ?Have you seen this kinds of thing on Pinterest? ?A woman prepared enough meals for her family for about 6 months. ?It only took her a day or two! ?Wonderful! Sounds like a plan. ?I checked out the book Don't Panic, Dinner is in the Freezer from the library and prepared to pull up my sleeves and get to work. ?Did I do it? No. It occurred to me, what if the power goes out? There goes alot off fodd to waste. Also, I am lazy. There..I said it. Not going to beat around the bush about it. After reading the amount of food to do it, I gave up. ?Not proud of it guys. ?However, my freezer is full of homemade bread, jam,banana bread and salsa. ? So, I can feel good about our purchase :) ?It's also much easier to get out ice cream.

In the book, this crock pot chicken recipe popped out at me. It's sweet, tangy and you just dump in the crock pot and cook it. ?Those are the best, right? ?Serve it over rice and you are ready to go.

Crock Pot Hawaiian Chicken

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Cooking Time: 4-5 hours

Serves: 6-8

Ingredients:

• 5-6 boneless chicken breasts (approx 2 1/2 lbs)
• 16 oz can of pineapple slices, drained
• 15oz can of mandarin oragnes, drained
• 1/4 cup corn starch
• 1/2 brown sugar
• 1/2 cup soy sauce
• 1/4 cup lemon juice
• 1 tsp ground ginger
• salt/pepper, to taste preference

Directions:

1. Spray crock pot with non stick cooking spray or use liners. ?Place chicken in pot.
2. In a mixing bowl, whisk together corn starch, brown sugar, soy sauce, lemon juice, ginger and salt/pepper. ?Pour over chicken.
3. Next, pour in drained pineapple slices and mandarin oranges
4. Cover and cook on low for 4-5 hours.

Source: http://www.ourtableforseven.com/2013/07/crock-pot-hawaiian-chicken.html

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Chinese government to reduced sentences if prisoners Tweet pro-Beijing comments

The Chinese government is offering reduced sentences to prisoners who post pro-Beijing comments on Sina Weibo ? China?s version of Twitter.

Xiao Qiang, a professor at Berkeley?s School of Information and founder of China Digital times, has discovered that there are commercial enterprises that contact for comment work in a bid to guide public opinion towards pro-government sentiment.

It?s been known that Chinese internet users can agree to leave positive comments about the government on social media and earn fifty Chinese cents per post, but reducing prison sentences for the task is absolutely shocking.

Xiao?s research also found that less than 15 per cent of active Sina Weibo accounts featured original posts, with over half being inactive or ?zombie? accounts.

Prisoner image via Shutterstock.com

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/pcr/stream/~3/11w-PxBSR2w/031424

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Continuous satellite monitoring of ice sheets needed to better predict sea-level rise

[unable to retrieve full-text content]The length of the satellite record for the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets is currently too short to tell if the recently reported speed-up of ice loss will be sustained in the future or if it results from natural processes, according to a new study.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/_mvy4Yc2jRU/130714160844.htm

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Watch This German UAV Crash into a Plane on an Afghan Runway

This is why we can't have nice things. Recently declassified video footage from Northern Afghanistan shows that piloting a drone isn't nearly as easy as it seems, even when it's still on the ground.

Read more...

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/T-49d76_Rp4/watch-this-german-uav-crash-into-a-plane-on-an-afghan-r-789381859

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BPA-Free Plastics Going On Trial In Texas

PlastiPure helps manufacturers create water bottles and other plastic products that have no estrogenic activity.

PlastiPure

PlastiPure helps manufacturers create water bottles and other plastic products that have no estrogenic activity.

PlastiPure

Scientists and lawyers are scheduled to debate the safety of certain "BPA-free" plastics this week in a U.S. District Court in Austin, Texas.

At issue is whether a line of plastic resins marketed by Eastman Chemical contains chemicals that can act like the hormone estrogen, and perhaps cause health problems.

The court battle has attracted attention because the Eastman resins, sold under the name "Tritan," have been marketed as an alternative to plastics that contain an additive called BPA. BPA has been shown to act a bit like estrogen, though it's not clear whether people are affected by the small amounts that come from plastic water bottles or food containers.

Eastman has sued two small companies based in Austin, Texas that published a study showing that a wide range of plastic products exhibit what's known as estrogenic activity. Some of the products were made from Eastman's Tritan.

Eastman's suit says PlastiPure and CertiChem, have made false or misleading statements about Tritan in marketing their own services. CertiChem tests plastic products for estrogenic activity. PlastiPure, a sister company, helps manufacturers make plastic products with no estrogenic activity.

Both companies were founded by George Bittner, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin and an author of the study that found estrogenic activity in most plastics. The study included tests of plastic products that had been subjected to heat, wear, and radiation intended to mimic exposure to sunlight.

"We certainly thought the results were not going to be greeted with favor by at least some plastic manufacturers," Bittner says. But, he says, "by bringing suit, Eastman Chemical has effectively put its Tritan product on trial."

Eastman Chemical wouldn't comment for this story. But in an interview last year, Lucian Boldea, a vice president of the company, said Bittner's study used a screening test for estrogenic activity that is known to produce false positives.

"To misrepresent a screening test as conclusive evidence is what we have the issue with," he said.

Bittner responds that the study included a second test that ruled out false positives.

Expert testimony about the various tests is likely to be a big part of the trial, says Rebecca Tushnet, a law professor at Georgetown. "I think it really depends what the evidence shows about these tests," she says. "And that really is a matter for experts."

This case includes some complex and competing scientific arguments, Tushnet says, which are often difficult to present in court. And even when the science is less nuanced, she says, it can be a challenge for judges and juries.

"Courts have a very ambiguous relationship to science," she says. "Sometimes they really defer to it and sometimes they are really skeptical of it. So it can be hard to predict what's going to happen in any particular case."

At least one piece of evidence likely to come up during the trial could prove embarrassing to Eastman. A supposedly independent study that appears to vindicate Tritan was actually paid for by Eastman, even though that wasn't disclosed in the published article, according to court documents.

If Eastman prevails, it will probably mean the end of PlastiPure and CertiChem. The suit has already caused big problems for the companies, says Mike Usey, the CEO of PlastiPure. "More than half the people that were at Certichem and Plastipure before the suit are now gone," he says

Even so, Usey says he's optimistic about the companies' future. "One of the good things that should come out of this suit is more consumer awareness of what the real issues are and what solutions are immediately available."

Whether or not that happens, the suit is a strong indication that the public debate is no longer about BPA alone, but about whether plastics contain any chemicals with enough hormonal activity to affect people.

Source: http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/07/15/201523240/bpa-free-plastics-going-on-trial-in-texas?ft=1&f=1007

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